Gran Canaria collects first EuroLeague road win

Herbalife Gran Canaria rallied from a 12-point deficit to nip Darussafaka Tekfen Istanbul 71-75 on Thursday at Volkswagen Arena for the club's first road win in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. Marcus Eriksson shined with a career-high 23 points on 5-of-8 three-point shooting plus 4 steals to lead the winners, who improved to 3-7. Anzejs Pasecniks added 17 points and 8 rebounds and D.J. Strawberry scored half of his 10 points in a key 0-11 fourth-quarter run that gave Gran Canaria the lead for good. For Darussafaka, which lost its eighth straight game to fall to 1-9, Ray McCallum scored 13 points and delivered 7 assists.

Darussafaka's starting center Micheal Eric was whistled for a pair of fouls inside the first minute and took an early seat on the bench, but his replacement, Emircan Kosut, made an instant impact with 4 points as the hosts took an 8-5 lead. Ray McCallum's triple and free throws soon after extended the margin to 22-13. Eriksson came alive for Gran Canaria with 7 straight points and an Albert Oliver-to Pasecniks alley-oop made it 25-22 after 10 minutes. The visitors tied it at 27-27 with Oriol Pauli's backdoor layup, but Jon Diebler fueled a 10-0 Darussafaka response with a deep three that prompted a Gran Canaria timeout. Kosut scored inside to give Darussafaka its biggest lead, 44-32. Pasecniks narrowed the deficit to 44-34 at the break. Gran Canaria got threes from Nikola Radicevic and Eriksson early in the second half to rally within 46-40. Eriksson's fourth triple of the night and a three-point play by Pasecniks brought Gran Canaria highlighted a 0-10 Gran Canaria run to tie the score at 54-54. After Kartal Ozmizrak free throws put Darussafaka back ahead, Eriksson banked in a deep three for his team's first lead, 56-57, at the end of the third quarter. Kim Tillie boosted the visitors with a three-pointer, however, McCallum soon took charge with an assist to Jeremy Evans and a pair of baskets of his own to give the hosts a 65-62 edge. Strawberry came to the fore for Gran Canaria with an assist and 5 points in a 0-11 run that gave the visitors control at 65-73. Ozmizrak scored a pair of quick baskets to give Darussafaka hope. Oliver made a pair of free throws with 51.3 seconds remaining that all but put the game on ice.

Game-changing sequence

Coach Maldonado called timeout after Ray McCallum's layup put Darussafaka ahead 65-62 with 7:23 remaining and after the teams returned to the floor it was all Gran Canaria. The visitors scored the next 11 points while holding Darussafaka scoreless for four and a half minutes, during which time the hosts missed six straight shots and committed a pair of turnovers. D.J. Strawberry fed Kim Tillie for the go-ahead bucket and then scored 5 quick points to give his team total control.

Bench scoring fuels Gran Canaria

Gran Canaria got a big lift from its second unit in the form of 48 points – led by Marcus Eriksson and Anzejs Pacesniks, 18 rebounds, 9 assists (8 from Albert Oliver) and 6 steals and a combined performance index rating of 49. For all those numbers the second unit outpointed the starters and in some cases by a healthy margin.

Head Coaches

CAKI, AHMET

Darussafaka Tekfen Istanbul

"We started the game well. We scored 44 points [in the first half] and we had a 10-point lead. But we said at halftime they are going to start start the third quarter really tough and start trying to make three-point shots because this is their game, especially with Eriksson and Strawberry, and unfortunately we gave them these three-point shots. Unfortunately we scored just 12 points in the third quarter and they got a 1-point lead after the third quarter. The fourth quarter we played a tie game, but again we scored just 15 points and it wasn't enough. Actually we played with hesitation, we didn't take shots with confidence. We also missed a lot of layups in the paint. Gran Canaria is a very experienced team and they played the last minutes very smart and carefully and won by 4 points. On our home court if we score just 71, it is not easy to win."

MALDONADO, SALVA

Herbalife Gran Canaria

"I am very happy for the win because it's our first one in this competition away from home. In the first half, Darussafaka played very well with intensity, they controlled the rhythm and the rebounds. We played very bad defense, but in the second half we improved our defense. In the third quarter we provoked many turnovers from them and in the last one we played very well. We had control of the game in the last 10 minutes. Our big men played well against physical players like Eric and Evans, I am very happy for their work and also from our small guys."

Players

PASECNIKS, ANZEJS

Herbalife Gran Canaria

"We needed this win because the last games were very tough for us. We needed this for our confidence and for the future, so we are really happy now. In the first half we had problems with our defensive rebounds, so they had second-chance points and we had a lot of turnovers too. In the second half, we made a huge step and we did our best to get rebounds and we pressed the ball and that helped us to win."

ERIKSSON, MARCUS

Herbalife Gran Canaria

"I am very happy because we really stepped up in the second half. In the first half we didn't play as good as we can. In the second half we really pulled it together. We improved a lot on defense overall. We have been struggling away form home this season, so it's a big win for us here."